Pretoria – The Independent Electoral Commission’s final voter registration weekend saw a total of 1 259 560 new potential voters registering to vote in the 7 May general elections.
Briefing reporters on the outcome of the final voter registration weekend on Tuesday, IEC chairwoman Pansy Tlakula said a record of 25.3 million South Africans are on the voters’ roll and ready to vote.
She said the new registrations lifted the overall registration level from 76.9 percent prior to the weekend to 80.5 percent of all eligible voters.
Tlakula said combined with the 1.1 million new voters who registered for the first time in November, some 2.3 million new voters will have to be added onto the voters’ roll for the first time since 8 November 2013.
According to Tlakula, this is about 17 percent higher than the target the Electoral Commission had set of 2 million.
Encouragingly, 79.89 percent of all new registrations this weekend or 1 006 260 are voters under the age of 30. This included:
- 691 002 voters aged 20 – 29
- 255 398 voters aged 18 and 19
- 59 860 voters aged 16 and 17
She said a further 1.48 million registered voters also used the weekend opportunity to change their new voting station, while 183 377 people re-registered at the same voting station.
“In total, just short of 3 million people visited our 22 263 voting stations this weekend. That is 16 percent higher than the 2.5 million who visited voting stations in November,” she said.
In terms of new registrations, the following are the provincial totals:
- Eastern Cape: 130 072 new voters (10.33 percent)
- Free State: 70 161 new voters (5.57 percent)
- Gauteng: 339 728 new voters (26.97 percent)
- KwaZulu-Natal: 298 652 new voters (23.71 percent)
- Limpopo: 86 835 new voters (6.89 percent)
- Mpumalanga: 97 732 new voters (7.76 percent)
- North West: 74 389 new voters (5.91 percent)
- Northern Cape: 25 332 new voters (2.01 percent)
- Western Cape: 136 659 new voters (10.85 percent)
According to Tlakula, women comprised 51.50 percent of new registrations, while men comprised only 48.50 percent.
The overall registration level against estimated eligible population for the provinces are as follows:
- Eastern Cape: 85.3 percent
- Free State: 85.8 percent
- Gauteng: 77.0 percent
- KwaZulu-Natal: 83.6 percent
- Limpopo: 81.0 percent
- Mpumalanga: 77.3 percent
- North West: 78.5 percent
- Northern Cape: 84.3 percent
- Western Cape: 77.8 percent
Registration has also been underway for overseas voters at South African diplomatic missions abroad.
“As of yesterday we had received 3 521 applications for registration.
“According to figures provided by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) we anticipate approximately 700 more applications are being couriered to us for capturing,” Tlakula said.
Prisoner registration conducted at correctional facilities throughout the country last Thursday and Friday resulted in 9 949 applications for registration by inmates.
Registration remains open for eligible voters until 5pm on the day of proclamation which is expected to be later this month.
Eligible voters can still register at their local IEC office until that day after which the voters’ roll closes. Contact details for IEC offices are available on www.elections.org.za or call 0800 11 8000.
Voters, who registered this weekend, can check their new registration details from Monday next week by SMSing their ID number to 32810. - SAnews.gov.za
